Silo.



U. E. WEBSTER.

SILO.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 24, 1912.

1,059,794. Patented Apr. 22, 1913.

. 3 SHEETS-SHEET l. 57 g. 1

Zlwueutoz v w Ch urles E Webster attorney:

G. E. WEBSTER.

SILO. APPLIOATION FILED JUNE 24, 1912.

1,059,794. Patented Apr. 22, 1913;

I 3 SHEETS-SHEET Z. 31%. Z

WNW/moses 193 E 5t 81" G. E. WEBSTER.

SILO.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 24, 1912.

1,059,794, Patented Apr. 22, 1913.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

IH 1H II wuewtoz Charles Elwebster q/vi/tmcooco Minimum-m.

CHARLES E. WEBSTER, OF WINTHROP, MINNESOTA.

SILO.

Specification 61 Letters Fatent.

Patented Apr. 22, 1913.

Application filed June 24, 1912. 4 Serial N 0. 705,575.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, CHARLESE. WEBSTER,

a citizen of the United States, residin" at Winthrop, in the county of Sibley and tate of Minnesota, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Sllos; and I do declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description 0 the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which 1 0 it appertains to make and use the same.

This invention relates to wooden buildings, and'more especially to silos; and one object of the same is to erect a structure of this character and for this purpose which shall be polygonal in cross section, whether octagonal, hexagonal or the like, as high and as large as may be desired, and Whose swallshall be made up of like units preferably of wood and formed of uniform size and so the shape throughout excepting that by pref.- erence I make them in rights and lefts and lay them oppositely in-alternate rows or tiers around the building as it is erected.

Another object is to provide a series of filler members made up of like units preferably also of wood and preferably formed of the same cross section but mitered at their ends, so t at a row of fillers may be quickly laid between each two rows of members above referred to.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a simple form of tongue-and-groove connection between the members of all types in contiguous rows, so arranged that neither end. of the grooves nor of the tongues will simplify the construction of the units com-' sarily a skilled mechanic or having a varietybe exposed to the weather on the exterior of the silo or to the ensilage on the interior thereof.

Still another object of the-"invention is to -'posin this building so that they maybe cheapy made in great quantities, easily stored and, transported, put together inthe erection of the silo by a person not necesof t00lS, fl7.ld producing a building which shall'be water-proof, and p'roofso far as possible against the deleterious effects of theacid and dampness in the ensilage.

With theseand other objects in view the invention consists in the, construction hereinatter more fully described and claimed,

and as shown in the drawings wherein- Figur'e'il" is a front elevation 'of a silo erected according to my invention, and Fig.

.,2 is a 'central vertical longitildinal sectional this building;

view thereof; Figs. 3 and 4 are cross sections on the lines 33 and 4-4 of Fig. 1; Figs. 5 and 6 are perspective details of one form of units which may be employed in erecting Fig. 7 is a cross sectional view through one of these units located upon the sill, and the latter mounted upon a base or foundation below the ground level; Figs. 8, 9, 10 and 11 are plan views of slightly different forms of units which may be employed; and Fig. 12 is a slightly enlarged perspective detail of what might .be called the preferred form of unit, being that shown in plan view in Fig, 8.

It will not be necessary in this specification to go into a detailed description of the construction of the roof R with its trap door T if one be employed; the doors I) may well be formed by sawing through the wall of the silo on lines which converge. out- Wardly as indicated in Figs. 2 and 3 so as to produce door-openings at proper pbints, and the doors themselves will be made u of the connected units thus sawed out of the wall of the building; the silo will by preference be provided with an exterior ladder roughly indicated by the letter L; and the sillS will be or may be mounted on a suitthese detailsthe body of the silo will be polygonal in cross section, and in the draw ings I have shown it as octagonal although of course it could hav'e'more or less faces than eight, as for instance six or twelve.

I prefer eight, however, because the-extremities of the units at theedges of each wall or faces of the silo will then abut on angles which are commonly founclin miterboxes and the material from which the units areformedcan then be out easily and. without the necessity for special bevels or tools. The length of each unit which will be the width of'each wall and which will therefore control the agg egate-size of the" silo, may be such as desired, but by preference I would" have the walls rather narrow so that; no interior or exterior beams would be required to brace them. V

As above intimated this improved silo is built up of units, each of which is sawed from a strip or leng h of lumber with the proper cross section, and by preference the section is such as to produce weather boarding on the exterior of the building as will even though the units lie one upon the other without the interposition of cement or other plastering. The vertical and lateral dimensions of each unit and its length, are mat- -ters of no moment; the shape of the cuts at .both ends of each unit is susceptible of wide modification without departing from .the

spirit of the invention, and several of them .in the ensilage, although it might be well,

are explained below'and illustrated in the drawings herewith; and I'do not wish to be limited with respect to the kind of wood that is employed, nor its treatment to render it water-proof and Weather-proof .and to'cause it to resist the action of the acids to suggest that I prefer to dip the lengths of lumber before the units are cut or the units themselves after they are cut into a composition composed ofv graphite and asphalt in the proper proportions, and it may be well to secure the unit or the rows of units one upon the other by means of twenty-penny nails which also have been dipped in the same or substantially the same composition to render them rust-proof. It will be observed from what follows that the rows of units are connected with each other by means of tongue-and-groove joints, and I may here say that I prefer to form the length of lumber with grooves in both sides rather than with a groove in one side and a tongueon the other, and cut the tongues separately and mount them separately in the groove along one face of the length, holdingthem in place either by the wedging shape of the grooves and tongues or by means of cement or otherwise. The obvious purpose of this course is to save lumber,--as there is less waste in cutting a 1 length which is flat on both'faces excepting for the grooves, than if it were cut so as to have an lntegral rib or tongue projectlng from one face'especially where one edge of the length is to be cut away so as to produce the weather boarding effect and in this waste or cut-away portion is sufiicient lumber to produce the tongue.

Coming now more particularly to the present invention, the .material from which the units'a're made is cut first in lengths of probably sixteen feet and approximately trapezoidal in cross section as best seen in Fig. 7; that is to say, the upper face 1 is flat except for a groove 2 which is prefembl tapereddownward slightly as showii inl g. 6, the lower face 3 is also flat and parallel with the upper face and provided with a. similar but reversed groove 4 directly beneath the upper groove 2, the inner face 5 is by preference flat and at strict right angles to the upper and lower faces as shown, and the outer fa e 6 is formed toi'mitate weatherboardingas by being inclind'youtward and downward slightly as seen in ii-Fig, 7, al-

are laid one upon the other as seen in Fig.

2, with their inner faces 5 flush to form the inner face of'the side wall, each juncture between the upper face of one unit and the lower face of the unit above will be protected by the overhanging lower edge'of the outer face or weather-boarding 6, whatever i the specific formation of the latter. Moreover, I would prefer that the grooves 2 and 4 in the opposite faces be superimposed or in line with each other, so that when the tongues 7 are inserted therein all the inner face, 5 will stand in one plane as well seen in Fig. 2. These tongues will, of course, be strips or keys sawed to fit the shape of the grooves 2 and 4, and if the latter flare outward from the center of each strip the tongues will have a corresponding taper upward and downward from their vertical centers as will be understood. As above suggested, the manner of securing these tongues in the grooves is not essential to .the present invention, and in fact they might simply be laid in or driven into the grooves although I would preferably insert them into such grooves in the lengths of'the lumber before the latter is sawed up into units. Such lengths may be said to be trapezoidal in to cut the units into lengths greater than any other dimension, as the lengths may be measured in feet while the transverse dimensions might be measured in inches.

In Fig. 11 is shown an extremely simple manner in which the extremities of each unit may be out, so as to prevent either end of the grooves or the tongues from becoming-exposed--f or the admission of moisture. Here the ends"'--. l1l are simply mitered on lines oblique to the longitudinal axis of the unit 112, and these lines diverge from each other radially outward from the-cefiter of the octagonal or hexagonal figure constituting the silo or other building being erected.- This divergence necessitates the use of fastening means of which two forms *are shown at 113 and 114, uniting the meeting ends of contiguous units in the same row, but said fastening means or devices may be omitted where the tongue-andgroove concal of any that may be used if preferred.

' and the tongue and groove arrangement is.

The outer face 6 of the unit in this figure ,is beveled'as abovedesdribed so that the cross section of the unit will he trapezoidal,

the same as set forth; but otherwise it is a form of unit which I would probably'use only as'a filler 'between other'rows of having the tongue-and-groove connectionunits having butt and lap joints between their meeting ends as yet to be described.

In Fig. 9 I show another form of filler unit 90 also trapezoidal in cross section-and above described, its outer face 6 being beveled and longer than its inner upright face 5; but the fastening. devices just mentioned in the paragraph above are replaced in this instance by a tenon 9l'projecting from one end of the unit 90 and entering a socket 92 in the-contiguous end of the next unit in this row. This illustration is typical of any form of fastening which may be employed between the meeting ends of units in the same row; but attention is again directed to the fact that none of thetenons or'sockets nor the tongues oigrooves are exposed for the admission of moisture from either the exterior or the interior of the silo. I might further say that in both forinslof ,fille'r unit the end grain of the wood is also not exposed to moisture at any point.

In Fig. 10 is shown what might be called the simplest form of my improved'unit having a butt'and lap joint. This is produced by cutting off the strip or length of lumber 107; and the inner face of any unit is exposed only between the points 108 and 109. No end grain whatever isexposed to the deleterious effect of acids in the ensilage, and only a short stretch of end grain (from a 106 to 107.) is exposed to the weather, while 106 and 109 wherethe lap end 100 joins the body,'arid there give them an angle as shown even this stretch is beveled so as to shed off the rain. The extremity 101 might be called the butt end and its grain protected by the inner face 50f the next unit to the right in Fig. 10, and the-other end, bounded by 'the triangle 106, 107, 109, might be called the lap end which comes in contact with the butt endof the unit next to the left in this view. .In order that the grooves 2 in any one unitmay not run out and be exposed, I extend them in this form from the butt end 101 to a point 2' on a line between and continue them asat 2' out the inner side edge between the points 107 .and109 so thatthev will aline with the grooves in the next adjacent ,units, and the tongues 7 may be successfully applied. When a silo is constructed of units of tlns characte'r, whereof those in one row are laid lapping to the left and those in the next adjacent row lapping to the right, it will be clear that the joints overlap each other or break joint with each other and that the tongue-andgroove' connection between the different rows will hold the parts together. To an extent this is the same result as would follow if the construction shown in Fig. 9 were employed with the tenons 91 thereof in one row projecting to the left and in the next row to the 'right,-whereas the construc- "tion. illustrated in Fig. 11 would never break joint and .I would therefore prefer to useit as'a filler between rows of other construction.

In Figs. 5, 6, 7, and also in Figs. 3 and 42 I have shown another form of unit 50 (a right being shownin Fig. 5 and a left v in Fig-6) whereof the butt end is out off strictlyupright as'before, but on a line 62 which 1s approximately radial to the silo and extends out to a point 60'whichisjint''rs'eoted by the grooves 2, and then on a. second line 61 extending from that point to the outer face of (the unit and converging toward the other end thereof. The lap end is also cut off one broken line, beginning with that portion 53 which, is approximately grooves 2, continuing thence longitudinally of the unit as at 54 so as to form a recess 52, and concluding. with an oblique out 51 converging toward the cut 61, extending to the outer face "6 of the unit, and like it formed 'in imitation of weather-boarding. When units of this kind are laid end to end, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4:, the cut-ofi' portion or shoulder 62 of one unit rests against the shoulder 53 of the adjacent unit, and the flat inner wall- 540i the lap end, rests'afgainst the flat cut 61 of the'butt end of the next radial to the silo and'extends outward tothe int adjacent member. Attention is directed to a the fact that here a ain both grooves and j tonguesare protects from moisture either jnside or outside ofthe silo, and only one extremity of the lap end of each unit'is exposed to the weather and that end is beveled in imitation of weather-boarding In 8 and 12 is shown whatmight be called my preferred form. Here the unit- "its 80 has its outer face 6 beveled, and the lap end 81 is also formed with the bevel so as to shed water, while the inner face is'yet npright at 5 on the inside of the building. The extremity of the beveled end 81 is cutoff as as S2, and the inner portion of the body is recessed as at 83, the inner extremityof the. recess being connected by a shoulder ea with said face fi -much the same as the 'recess 52 and shoulder 53 of Fig. 6 excepting that the into the building in the direction of the arrow shown in Fig. 8. This end 85 of theunit is cut off as at 86 so as to fit against the shoulder 84, and shouldered. as at 87 to rein the opposite direction,'with or without.

ceive the cut-off extremity 82 of the lap end of the contiguous unit. These units, like all others described, are laid in rows, first a seriesof rights being laid around the building in. one direction, and then a series of lefts the interposition of a row of fillers as shown in Figs. 9 or 11, and the units in one row nailed or otherwise secured upon the units in the row beneath if desired, or permitted to become attached thereto by driv- .ing'them' down so that the'Wedge-shaped tongues will 'fit into the wedge-shaped With my preferred form of units the 'groovesjZ extend straight from the butt end to the shoulders 84 on the lap end, and

. therefore the angles 2 ofthe form shown 'in Fig. 10 are not necessary. But Whatever the form of butt-and lap joint units, 1

would dispose their grooves the samedistance from their 1nner faces as are the Q grooves in. the miterednnits above described.

Broadly speaking, the more numerous and complicated the angles' given to each end of each 'unit, the more intimate their. fit to each other, the less likely they will be to become disengaged, and the greater obstruction they- .ofi'er to the beating in of rain.. To these ends it might be said that the unit with the greater number of angles is preferred. On

the other hand, it is more expensive to cut units of this kind,'and from the standpoint of economy it might be said that the simpler unit is preferred. However, I have found that the unit ,best seen in Fig. 12. oresents no'or very few sharp corners to become split or broken or jammed in transportation or storage, and the result is that by the time it reaches the consumer or user and is by him built into lace it is in better condition than most of 1c others illustrated. For this reason additional to those mentioned above be said to be my predo not wish to be limited to the sizes,shapes, proportions, materials and finish of parts; and changes in details may be made so long as the spirit of this invention is retained.

What is claimed as new is 1. A polygonal structure Whose Wall is composed of rows of units having butt and lap ends and every unit of both types has its upper and'lQWer {faces provided with superimposed grooves registeringwvith those and lower faces in the next -,row, the-extremities of said 2. A polygonal structure whose .1351 is composed of rows of unitshaving butt and lap ends and occasional rows of filler units having mitered ends, every unit of both types'having its upper and lower faces provided with superimposed grooves registering with those in the next rows, the extremities of said grooves meeting those in the contiguous units of the same rowso that no groove in the structure is exposed.

31A polygonal'structure whose .wall includes r'owsofunits whereof each unit is cut on broken lines to produce a butt end and a lap end, the latter having a recess at the inner side of'fheunit receiving the butt end of the contiguous unit, and the upper of each unit having longitudinal superimposed grooves extendinglinto said recess so that they meet the grooves in the butt end of the contiguous unit; and av connection between registering grooves in two rows of units.

4'. A polygonalstructure whose wall includes'rows of u "its having beveled exposed outer faces and 'ii hereof each unit is cut onbroken lines to produce a butt end and a lap end, the latter having one extremity beveled to match said beveled outer face and a recess at the inner side of the'unit receiving the buttend of the contiguous unit, and the upper and lower faces of each unit having longitudinal superimposed grooves extending into said recess so that they meet thegrooves in the butt end of the contiguous unit. I

5. The hereindescribedbuilding unit for polygonal structures which has butt and lap ends each formed on broken lines, the butt end having an oblique cut with a shoulder at one extremity thereof and the other extremity cut off to the inner face of the unit,

.and the lap end having a beveled face conrecessed to receive the oblique cut andith'e extremity'of said next unit.

6. The herein described building unit .for polygonal structures which has butt and lap ends each formed on broken lines, the butt" .end having an oblique cut With a shoulder andfthe lap end having a beveled face converg ng toward said oblique cut, its extremat one extremity thereof and the other extremity cut off to the inner face of the unit,

ity cut off to engage said shoulder in the;

next unit, and. its inner side recessed 'to 'r'e ceive'the oblique cut and the extremity of said next unit, the upper-face. of the unit having a groove paralleling its inner face for the purpose set forth, one end of said groove running out into said recess and the other end running out into the. extremity of the butt end to meet the opposite end of the groove in the contiguous unit.

1. The herein described building unit for polygonal structures which has butt andlap ends each formed on broken lines, the butt end having-an oblique cut 'With a shoulder at one extremity thereof, and the lap end having its extremity out off to engagesaid IIGSSGS.

oHARL s WEBSTER.

Witnesses:

L. O, HILTON, N. L. COLLAMER.

Copies of this patent maybe obtained-for fivegents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents.

Washington, D. O. 

